Threat of highly sophiscated cyber weapon against infrastructures is now reality

As usual newspapers dive in to try and sensationalise the story and in doing so missed the key issue.

A quick logic check will reveal that recognising a serious cyber attack as an act of war is very similar to the current stance. We are only talking about major systematic attacks that probably only a few top government backed organisations in the world could launch. Think something along the lines of the firesale attacks in the last die hard. Obama is not going to be ordering Tomahawk strikes because he
got a pop up while surfing the web no matter how annoyed he got about it.

The key development is the inclusion of economic sanctions as a possible response, and this is aimed largely at the likes of Iran.

But I can see massive problems in trying to justify any retaliatory actions using this new law even if it passes because of how hard it is to prove who is actually behind the attacks. Or maybe that could be used as a way to get around needing hard evidence to justify doing another Iraq. It's a lot easier to fudge a computer report than to manufacture real hard evidence.

According to the AP China fired back today, let the systematic trading of accusations begin! In terms of fighting for hearts and minds, the internet definitely adds another medium for constant propaganda warfare, besides from TV and radio.

China Accuses U.S. of Launching Global 'Internet War'

Published June 03, 2011
| Associated Press

BEIJING – The Chinese military accused the U.S. on Friday of launching a global "Internet war" to bring down Arab and other governments, redirecting the spotlight away from allegations of major online attacks on Western targets originating in China.

The accusations Friday by Chinese military academy scholars, and their urging of tougher policing of the Internet, followed allegations this week that computer hackers in China had compromised the personal Gmail accounts of several hundred people, including government officials, military personnel and political activists.

Google traced the origin of the attacks to the city of Jinan that is home to a military vocational school whose computers were linked to a more sophisticated assault on Google's systems 17 months ago. China has denied responsibility for the two attacks.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the United States had raised its concerns with China over the latest allegations. He said the allegations were serious but made no comment on reports of China's involvement.

Writing in the Communist Party-controlled China Youth Daily newspaper, the scholars did not mention Google's claims, but said recent computer attacks and incidents employing the Internet to promote regime change in Arab nations appeared to have originated with the U.S. government.

"Of late, an Internet tornado has swept across the world ... massively impacting and shocking the globe. Behind all this lies the shadow of America," said the article, signed by Ye Zheng and Zhao Baoxian, identified as scholars with the Academy of Military Sciences.

"Faced with this warmup for an Internet war, every nation and military can't be passive but is making preparations to fight the Internet war," it said.

While nuclear war was a strategy of the industrial era, Internet war is a product of the information age, the article said. Such conflicts stand to be hugely destructive, threatening national security and the very existence of the state, it said.

China needs to "express to the world its principled stance of maintaining an 'Internet border' and protecting its 'Internet sovereignty,' unite all advanced forces to dive into the raging torrent of the age of peaceful use of the Internet, and return to the Internet world a healthy, orderly environment," the article said.

China already heavily filters content and blocks numerous foreign websites, a system known as the "Great Firewall of China." The police employ a large force of Internet monitors to scour the Web for content deemed illegal or subversive, and those users transmitting sensitive contact can be charged with sedition or other crimes.

A number of foreign governments say they've been targeted by hacking attacks from China, although Beijing routinely denies undertaking such operations and says it too is a victim of such activity.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters attacks such as the one alleged by Google were a primary reason why the State Department had for the first time created a cyber-security coordinator.

The FBI said it was investigating Google's allegations, but no official government email accounts have been compromised. Google said all the hacking victims have been notified and their accounts have been secured.

The thing is, as of today, Vietnamese hackers, trying to do something regarding the recent South Sea incidents, attacked some Chinese website servers, including Baidu...

Not too much damage the Vietnamese made, while Chinese hackers hammers back. Till now, some Vietnamese governmental websites, and many other famous commercial sites, are still "404, unreachable"

For both side, these are low tech cyber attacking activities, not to mention hardly saying this is any governmental organized event. What interesting, is this though:

If China, has already ALSO concluded a National Security Policy like what US did not long ago, that cyber attack is kind of Act of War.... Dose this turn / round of "low tech cyber attack exchange", considering as kind of Act of War? or at least "skirmish" level of cyber conflicts?

Dose the world's power countries ready to face ALL-OUT-WAR, when it could possibly being sparked by some geek in his own garage?

Cyber attack happen because most computer are still windows based.

china should get linux or bsd system already